Bitcoin Booming in Nigeria: Citizens Trading $4 mln of BTC a Week

There are thirteen local crypto trading venues in Nigeria, and every week the country’s citizens trade approximately $4 million of BTC. And that’s in spite of the Nigerian government cautioning people numerous times about the jeopardies that cyber assets bear. In the meantime, crypto specialists call the authorities to review its position concerning virtual money in Nigeria.

Nigerians ignoring governmental caveat

Nigerian watchdogs and lawmakers have started maintaining a rigid attitude on cyber assets. The most recent example of it
emerged
from a probe regarding BTC trading, which was filed by the country’s Senate.

But there had been some more warnings. For instance, in 2017 the Central Bank
noted
that bitcoin and its brethren were not legal tender. Therefore, the institution turned to all Nigerian banks saying that their business with virtual money was at their peril. In the meantime, the country’s Deposit Insurance Corporation cautioned Nigerians that they could not hope for consumer advocacy when selling or purchasing cyber assets.

Notwithstanding the above, all the warnings have not worked out as Nigerian’s interest in cryptos grows, even though it has not reached its full potential. As local media outlet
Leadership
reported, Nigerians keep piling their funds into bitcoin, trading about N1.389 billion worth of bitcoin, which makes up approximately $3.8 million. This is the data representing February, whereas just two months ago the same indexes showed $3.6 million.

At present, 13 cyber money burses are functioning in the country. According to
CoinDance,
just in mid-December, these exchanges saw a record in trading as the weekly high reached the margin of 1.95 billion of local public currency Naira. That is nearly $5.4 million.

Advancement First

The booming of cryptos in Nigeria has not come only to bitcoin. According to software dev and top architect at Cymantiks Nigeria – Emeka Okoye, – every weak Nigerians pile into virtual assets $4.7 in total. As
news.Bitcoin.com
reported, the developer tried to persuade government’s representatives to change the attitude towards cryptocurrency regulation.

Okoye believes that the more the authorities criticize cryptos, the more people will be driven by speculation and drawn into illegal actions. He added that it was an approach of allowing technological advancement to take the stage first, whereas regulation should have come later. This way, ordinary people would benefit from it, not the players.

The expert also said that if the government bans cryptos entirely, it will make the tech tool illegal. Therefore, criminals will start using them, and it will be the ordinary citizens who will have to deal with the consequences.

“Do they understand how it works? I can build a crypto exchange that is not domiciled in Nigeria, and they cannot regulate it. I also have a foreign card, and they cannot control what I do with it?” said he.

At the same time, Okoye said that bitcoin and its ilks would not substitute public currencies completely. However, cryptos will supplement fiat money, providing for more straightforward and appropriate remittances. The crypto specialist is also sure that the current people’s excitement about cyber money, which has led to speculation and fuels its price, is a derivation from its real sense.